The influence on society of a belief in witchcraft was of the most pernicious kind. It gave an unchecked flow to all the malignant passions ; some venting them in accusations, others in attempts to practise the nefarious art. In the year 1515 five hundred people are said to have been executed at Geneva on charges of witchcraft; and Remigius, the inquisitor, boasts that he put nine hundred to death in Lorraine. The first person who lifted his voice against these cruelties was Wierus, who wrote in 1568. He and his followers carried on a controversy with Delrio, Bodinus, Scribonius, and others, in which it is generally admitted that the defenders of witchcraft, were the more successful logicians. The supporters of old and received fallacies have their compact and complete system of sophistry, and he who would break through it must, like a Bacon or a Locke. possess strength enough to destroy the whole fabric. Wierus and his followers ven tured raise their voice against the method only of the manifestation of Satan's power of diabolical possession, not its existence. Against the brutal practice of swimming a witch to see if she will sink or float, which may be traced as an ordeal succeeding that of the red-hot ploughshares, and which inferred that a body in which an evil spirit dwells is lighter than water, they could do no more than adduce the experimental fact, that the herd of swine into which Jesus cast the evil spirits, running into a lake, were drowned. Of all the oppo nents of this superstition the English Reginald Scot, who wrote in 1584, was perhaps the most successful in the employment of an ac quaintance with natural operations, a bold scorn of fallacies highly supported, and a ready sarcasm. He was followed by Harsnet in 1599, and in 1720 by Francis Hutchinson, who, however, appealed chiefly to the unlearned, among whom alone the belief lingered at the time when he wrote.
The learned men of Europe generally were uslievers in witch craft down to the end of the 17th century. Belden has an apology for the law against witches, which shows a lurking belief. He says that if one believes that, by turning his hat thrice and crying bus,' he could take away a man's life ; "this were a just law made by the state, that whoever should turn hie hat and cry ' bus' with en intention to take away a mau's life shall be put to death." The logic of Selden's mind, if untainted by superstition, would surely have shown him that a law waging war with intentions incapable of being fulfilled must be both useless and mischievous. Sir Thomas Browne and Sir Matthew Hale were believers in witchcraft, and attested their belief by being instrumental in convictions for the crime. It is supposed that there were no executions for witchcraft in England subsequent to the year 1682 ; but the etatute of 1 James I., c. 12, so minute in its enactments against witches, was not repealed till the 9 Geo. II., e. 5. In Scotland, so late as the year 1722, when the local jurisdictions were still hereditary, and had not been put Into the hands of professional lawyers, the sheriff of Sutherlandehire condemned a witch to death. It is worthy of remark, as one of the last vestiges
of this superstition in educated and professional minds, that in a work called ' The Institutes of the Law of Scotland,' published in Edinburgh in 1730, by William Forbes, an author deservedly neglected by practical lawyers, after a specific definition of the nature of witch craft, there is the following passage :—" Nothing seems plainer to me than there may be, and have boon witches. and that perhaps such are now actually existing; which 1 intend, God willing, to clear in a larger work concerning the criminal law." This promised work never made its appearance.
W I l'ENAGEMOTE, literally an "assembly of wise men," from the Anglo-Saxon " gemuth," an ' assembly," and "witan," "to know," which has the name root, " wit" or " wis," as the words wit, witness, wise, and the legal phrase still in use " to wit." Although the chief rulers of the Anglo-Saxon states, nearly down to the time of the Conquest, bore the title of king, and in their charters and letters attached to it many sonorous epithets, yet iu fact they were little raised in power above the other chiefs of their nation. To election by these chiefs the king owed his office ; and if the sceptre descended in his race, it was by means of the formal recognition of the new king by the nobles in an assembly convened for the purpose. Of this assembly the chief ecclesiastics in the kingdom, archbishops, bishops, and abbots, the judes (if such there were), and the largest landholders formed part. Whether the main body of the people had a voice in this great council is doubtful ; but judging by the analogy of the shire motes, and of all the political and judicial institutions of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, it is probable that the freemen who were near the spot had a right to be present. Any important law or regulation was transmitted for approval or consideration to the various folk motes. While the folkmotes were small, and the occasions for assemb ling few, little inconvenience was felt, but ultimately it was found expedient for the king to summon an influential person from various parts of the country. perhaps occasionally the leading man of a folk mote, and thus form an assembly of counsellors, or witenagemote, This change was no doubt gradual, and no precise date can be fixed.
It is certain that it was in existence in this form under Ethelstan, (A.D. 931) and that all the sheriffs of counties attended it. In 934 there were present at one of these assemblies the king, four Welsh princes, two archbishops, seventeen bishops, four abbots, twelve dukes, and fifty-two thanes. The members were not elected, in any sense hut either nominated by the king or summoned by the assembly after having been constituted; and the members seem to have had the right, or assumed the privilege, of introducing a friend or counsellor.